


guess we're alike that way

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Band Fic, Chopped: The 100 Fanfic Challenge, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, Julie and the Phantoms AU, Minor Bellamy Blake/Gina Martin, Minor Clarke Griffin/Harper McIntyre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: Octavia died 25 years ago.  The answer, by the way, is ghosts.  Just ghosts.  Yeah, it's just as bad as it sounds.  Especially Murphy.  Why did the only living person who could see her have to be fucking Murphy?
Relationships: Octavia Blake/John Murphy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 25
Collections: Chopped Choice: Horror





	guess we're alike that way

**Author's Note:**

> What is this? A Julie and the Phantoms Murphtavia AU? Everything you always dreamed about but never hoped to wish for?
> 
> HELL YEAH IT IS!!!
> 
> Welcome to Chopped, the home of crack like this!
> 
> THEME: Angst AKA GET READY TO CRY  
> TROPE 1: Mythical Creature(s) (Horror Trope) AKA GHOST  
> TROPE 2: Based on a TV show AKA JULIE AND THE PHANTOMS  
> TROPE 3: Character cradling their significant other's face while they kiss AKA READ IT TO SEE IT  
> TROPE 4: Reunion AKA NO SPOILERS!
> 
> And, yes, I know that American Thanksgiving is after Halloween, but Canadian Thanksgiving is before Halloween, so let's not just assume that everyone and everything is American and then come yell at me in the comments about it. We're all Canadian here, and calendar-wise this checks out.
> 
> Title is from Unsaid Emily from Julie and the Phantoms. Go check it out. That scene makes me cry every time I watch it.  
> Hope you enjoy!!!

Octavia pushed off the wall she was leaning against when Murphy came out of the office, falling into step beside him as he stomped off through the hall. She cleared her throat, trying to catch his attention, but he only turned to scowl at her, the effect lessened by the black eye and bloody lip he was currently sporting.

“If you can’t sing because of that thing, I’m quitting the band,” she told him, and he huffed. She jumped in front of him, planting her hands on her hips and making him stop in his steps. “Seriously, Murphy. You’re shit at fighting.”

Murphy looked like he wanted to retort for a moment, but only rolled his eyes before walking through her.

“Rude,” she snapped, following after him.

They were in his car not long after, and he slammed his hands into the steering wheel once she appeared in his passenger seat.

“You know I can’t talk to you when there are people around,” he pointed out, and Octavia rolled her eyes.

“People thinking you’re talking to yourself is the least of your problems,” Octavia countered, eyeing the bandages on his knuckles. “I don’t even know what you were thinking. What if you’d broken your hand and couldn’t play anymore? What if the swelling in your lip doesn’t go down and we can’t perform this weekend? What then?”

Murphy clenched his jaw as he backed out of the parking space. “Then we’d have to miss a show,” he said. “Big deal.”

Octavia scoffed. “Big deal?” she repeated. Was he insane? “Of course it’d be a fucking big deal. This is our futures!”

He slammed his hands against the wheel again, turning to look at her. “You’re dead,” he pointed out, which, true, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when it was pointed out. “It’s only my future we’re worrying about.”

She took a deep breath in through her nose, trying not to let him get to her. “That’s why you should’ve listened to me,” she said. “Do you know how many fights I got into before I died? Have you seen _any_ scars on me? No. Because I was fucking good. And I was giving you pointers, Murphy. Can’t you fucking listen?”

Murphy just rolled his eyes and didn’t answer, so Octavia huffed and disappeared from the car to reappear at the beach. She needed some alone time.

Murphy was the worst thing that had ever happened to Octavia. Okay, no. Scratch that. Dying was the worst thing that had ever happened to Octavia. If she was feeling generous, she might say that knowing that Clarke and Harper died with her was worse.

Meeting Murphy, if she was being honest and if he wasn’t pissing her off, was undoubtedly the best thing to happen to her since she’d died. They’d spent twenty five years in some sort of timeless limbo before Murphy had somehow summoned them into his garage.

He was the only living person that could see them, unless they were playing. When they played their music with Murphy, everyone could see them.

So Murphy wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to Octavia. Even if sometimes it felt like he was.

Murphy pissed her off more often than he didn’t. Harper thought that meant they were probably soulmates. Clarke thought it was karma.

Octavia, though, if she was feeling particularly insightful, was pretty sure that Murphy just pissed her off because he was alive and she wasn’t. He got to be the one their fans cheered for. He got to be the one picking stupid fights that could prevent them from making a show. He got to be the one with a future that didn’t depend on another person wanting to have a ghost band.

It wasn’t fair, really. Why couldn’t it have been some form of heaven after you died? Or, hell, Octavia would’ve even taken reincarnation. Why couldn’t she have been reincarnated as like a dog or something?

Why the fuck did it have to be ghosts?

She kicked at a bucket someone had left on the sand, her foot going right through it, and sighed.

Fucking ghosts.

Octavia lingered outside Murphy’s house, trying to give herself the nerve to go inside. Fuck, she was such a hypocrite. She’d literally just told Murphy to stop fighting people, and then she’d had to fight that asshole ghost at the beach.

In her defence, the asshole ghost hadn’t been much of a fight. And then his asshole ghost buddies showed up, and it was never a fair fight when it was six to one.

But Murphy wouldn’t care about that. Murphy would just care that she told him not to do something and then went out and did it.

Which, like, normally she’d just avoid him for a day or two until she healed. One of the only good things about being a ghost is that ghost inflicted injuries healed pretty fast.

But everything hurt. Like really bad. Like if she wasn’t already dead, she’d think she was dying. She was pretty sure things were broken, if that was even possible.

And Clarke and Harper were out on a date tonight, which was the entire reason she’d gone to see Murphy at school today in the first place. She’d wanted to convince him to go see a movie or something, so she could pretend she wasn’t a dead third wheel to her dead friends for a couple hours. If she went into the garage to avoid Murphy, she’d just be alone. She wasn’t a huge fan of being alone.

So she grit her teeth and disappeared from Murphy’s yard and reappeared on his bed, stretching out and letting out a breath as the weight left her sore leg.

Murphy had his back to her and his headphones on, and she let her eyes linger on his butt as she waited for him to notice her. He had a good butt. She could appreciate a good butt, even if it was Murphy’s.

Murphy eventually turned around—and jumped about six feet into the air.

“Jesus _fuck,_ Octavia,” he grumbled, pulling off his headphones. His eye was completely swollen shut now, his lip a deep purple. His open eye widened as he seemed to take her in.

“Fuck off,” she told him, before he could say anything. “I just—do you have any bandages or, like, weed or something?”

“What happened to being good at fighting?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking at her. “What happened to thinking about our futures?”

Octavia flipped him off with the hand that didn’t feel like it was on fire. “Bandages, asshole,” she repeated. “And some weed. I know you have it here somewhere.”

Murphy rolled his eyes but left the room, returning a few minutes later with an armful of bandages and gauze.

She didn’t know how the whole ghost thing worked, what she was allowed to touch and what she wasn’t. The stuff that had belonged to her before she died was usually allowed. The first aid equipment that Murphy had brought her was allowed. People and food, though, hadn’t been allowed yet. 

Octavia ignored Murphy as she wrapped her injuries. She could feel his dumb smirk even when she wasn’t looking at him, and she wished she could touch him so she could wipe it off his face with her fist. Or maybe her lips.

“You know,” she said absently, trying to distract herself from the pain as she tried to decide what to do with her probably broken leg. How many days was that going to take to heal? “If I wasn’t dead and we could actually touch each other, I’d probably make out with you.”

Murphy didn’t say anything for a minute, and Octavia decided to pretend she hadn’t said anything. It wasn’t like she _liked_ Murphy. That would be gross. It was just that he kind of fit into what her type had been back when she was alive—tough, secretly nice, great butt. Really, she fit into her type, but it wasn’t like you could date yourself. And she’d seen pictures of Murphy’s ex. According to Harper, Emori’s family had moved across the country last year and she’d broken it off with him before she left. Not that that mattered. What mattered was that, by the looks of tattoo across Emori’s face and the split lip in one of the pictures, Octavia was probably Murphy’s type, too.

“If you were alive, I’d probably make out with you, too.”

Octavia looked up from her wounds, raising her eyebrows at Murphy, who wasn’t looking at her. His face seemed a bit red, and Octavia was definitely not going to acknowledge the way her heart was racing because it was definitely her imagination since she was dead and didn’t need her heart to beat at all, let alone race.

“What?” she said, because she was really mature. “You got a crush on me or something?”

Murphy looked at her then and rolled her eyes. “More like I want to crush you,” he countered, because he was also mature. “Is your leg broken?”

Octavia shrugged and reached out to poke it. Her experiment, like the half dozen previous identical experiments, told her that touching her leg was still very painful. 

“It’ll heal.”

It had been a week since Octavia told Murphy she’d make out with him if it was physically possible. Not that she was counting. Or cared.

Her leg had healed enough that she could stand on it in time for their show that weekend, and had completely healed by now. The rest of her injuries were gone, too, and she was as good as new. Murphy’s injuries had, thankfully, not hindered their performance at all, and were nicely on their way to healing, too.

Their next show was in three weeks at Murphy’s high school’s Halloween dance. It was destiny, really, that a ghost band would be doing a Halloween gig.

That’s what she was working on now. Their songs were good. She and the girls had a lot of good material from before they’d died, and they and Murphy had a ton of good ideas for new content. Which they needed. They’d debuted at least one new song at every performance so far, and none of them were ready to start breaking that trend.

Which was why they were working on compiling their set list.

Or, rather, she and Clarke were working on compiling their set list. Harper was more invested in designing their costumes for the dance. Because apparently being ghosts wasn’t Halloween enough.

“We should just wear sheets over ourselves,” Octavia suggested, squinting at the papers in front of her.

Clarke snorted, but Harper didn’t seem to find it as funny.

“No,” she said. “We’re being sexy witches.”

Octavia looked up from her papers, meeting Clarke’s amused gaze before turning to look at Harper.

“All of us?” she questioned. “Even Murphy?”

“Yes.” Harper held up her sketch, the four of them depicted on the page in witch costumes that showed a lot of skin. Murphy’s had booty shorts and a crop top.

“We look hot,” Clarke said, and Octavia nodded her agreement. “I don’t think Murphy’s gonna go for it, though.”

Harper scoffed. “Just you watch,” she said, and then disappeared for a moment before reappearing. “Where _is_ Murphy?”

“Museum,” Octavia said. The others stared at her, and she realized she might have said that a little quickly. “What? He’s been complaining about this field trip for weeks.”

“Sure,” Harper said, smirking at her. “It’s definitely not because he’s exactly your type and you’re into him. That would be crazy.”

She disappeared again before Octavia could protest her wildly inaccurate accusations.

“What’s up with you and Murphy, anyway?” Clarke asked, and Octavia flicked her pen at her. Clarke ducked in time, or it would have hit her between the eyes.

“Nothing is _up_ ,” Octavia told her. “I’m dead, remember? Even if I _wanted_ something to be up, it’s not like we can even touch each other.”

“Right,” Clarke agreed. “But that doesn’t mean—”

She cut herself off when Harper reappeared in the room. Their friend looked, for lack of a better phrase, like she’d seen a ghost.

Which was ridiculous because they _were_ ghosts which meant they saw ghosts all the time.

“Murphy hates the sexy witch idea?” Octavia guessed slowly, glancing over at Clarke.

“What?” Harper blinked, seeming to realize for the first time that she wasn’t alone. “Oh. No. He says he’s gonna be a pirate or he’s quitting the band.” She shifted her feet. “But that’s not it.”

“What is it, then?” Clarke asked, standing up.

Harper’s mouth opened and then closed again a few times, before she just shook her head. “You need to come.”

And then she was gone. Octavia glanced over at Clarke again before disappearing, following Harper to the museum.

She spotted Murphy in the crowd of students, making her way through to him.

“What’s going on with Harper?” she asked, and Murphy glanced over at her before shrugging.

“No idea,” he whispered under his breath. Some of the kids gave him a weird look, but then Miller seemed to figure out he was talking to one of the ghosts so he shifted closer and acted like he was whispering back. “She was trying to convince me to wear that costume, and then she saw our tour guide and just freaked out.”

“Your tour guide?” Octavia repeated, and Murphy nodded his head towards the front of the group.

Octavia followed his gaze, wondering just what was up with the museum tour guide to make Harper come back looking the way she did.

And then she saw him.

He was laughing, his face lit up, a grin tugging at his cheeks. It’d been twenty five years, but she’d recognize her brother’s laugh anywhere. 

He’d gotten old, was the first thing that she noticed. He looked so much older than how she pictured him in her head, but it’d been _25 years_ which meant he was almost 50, _holy shit_ , but the tour guide was definitely Bellamy.

Murphy was still talking, but Octavia couldn’t make out any of his words, couldn’t tear her gaze away from her brother.

It’d been twenty five years since she’d died. She knew that. She’d known that for months now, since the moment she’d first appeared in Murphy’s garage and he’d told them that it wasn’t actually Harper’s garage anymore. She’d _known_ that it had been twenty five years since she’d died. There were times when everything was so weird that she couldn’t forget it.

She’d _known_.

But this, seeing Bellamy so _old_ , this was the first time it had really sunk in.

She was moving through the crowd without realizing it, moving away from Murphy and towards Bellamy. Because it was definitely Bellamy. If she hadn’t already known that before, she was more and more sure the closer she got.

All she could think about was the last time she’d seen him. The fighting. The screaming.

_“Mom would have wanted me to do this!”_

_“Mom’s not here! I am! I’m in charge, Octavia! Not you! Me! You’re not going!”_

_“Fuck you, Bellamy! I hate you! I hate you!”_

_“Octavia—”_

_“No! No. Fuck. You. Clarke’s here. I’m leaving.”_

_“You’re not going anywhere!”_

_“Yes, I am. I’m leaving.”_

_“Octavia! Get back in the house!”_

_“No! Fuck you, Bellamy! I never want to see you again!”_

And she’d gotten her wish. She’d run away and, a few months later, she’d died.

She’d left him, in the worst way possible. She’d disappeared and she’d left him and she never saw him again.

Until now, twenty five years later.

She’d never gotten to apologize then, and now she never had the chance.

“What the fuck is going on?” Murphy hissed. Someone hushed him and he flipped them off, his eyes not leaving Octavia. She was moving through the crowd of his classmates towards the tour guide. He could feel Miller looking at him, knew he was going to get a huge grilling about the ghosts once he was able to.

He could feel the dull coolness of Clarke and Harper at his sides, idly wondered why they weren’t following Octavia. Because Octavia definitely seemed the most freaked out.

He tore his gaze from Octavia to look between Clarke and Harper. “What’s happening?” he repeated.

“That’s Bellamy,” Clarke said quietly, almost in disbelief.

“Yeah,” Murphy said slowly. “That’s what he said his name was. What does that mean?”

“He’s…” Harper started, and then broke off. “He’s Octavia’s brother.”

His gaze snapped back to Octavia then, now up next to the tour guide, Bellamy, her _brother what the fuck._

“No,” he whispered to Clarke and Harper. “No. There’s no way. He could be her dad, maybe, but not her brother. He’s way too old.”

Harper shook her head in his peripheral vision. “He wasn’t twenty five years ago.”

Right. Right. It’s been twenty five years since the last time Octavia aged. Bellamy would’ve been, what? Early-mid twenties twenty five years ago? Much more plausible for him and Octavia to be siblings.

Holy fuck.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, and someone shushed him again.

And then Harper and Clarke were talking again, telling him everything.

Bellamy had gotten custody of Octavia when their mom died. They had some sort of huge fight. Octavia never gave them the details, but it was big enough for her to run away.

And then they died.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

There wasn’t anything he could do. Not now. Not with so many people around.

But _fuck_. Poor Octavia. He had no idea how she was handling this. How were you supposed to handle being dead and seeing someone you loved and hadn’t seen since before you died?

If Octavia was the norm, the answer was apparently shock. She stuck close to Bellamy for the rest of the tour, just staring at him. It was the quietest Murphy had ever seen her, and he didn’t like it.

He was absolute shit with feelings, but he wished he could do something. He couldn’t say anything, or everyone around him would think he was crazy. There was only so much “talking to himself” that Miller could cover for. He couldn’t even give her a hug. They’d both pretend they hated it, but he was pretty sure Octavia could use a hug.

Octavia didn’t leave Bellamy’s side even when Murphy’s class was heading back to the bus. He hesitated, trying to find any sort of emotion in Octavia’s blank face, trying to find a way to call to her without it being weird.

But then Mr. Pike was ushering him towards the bus, and he was leaving her behind, Clarke and Harper standing watch on the steps of the museum.

He was not freaking out, because that would be weird. He wasn’t freaking out.

He was just slightly minorly concerned because Octavia hadn’t been home in five days. Not that she _had_ to come here. It wasn’t like this was _her_ home, or that she didn’t have other places she could stay.

But Murphy had gotten used to having Octavia at his house, bothering him and going through his things and being a general nuisance.

Harper and Clarke were still there, but it wasn’t the same. They’d seen Octavia, because they could go to the museum or Bellamy’s house without seeming creepy, because no one could see them. They said that Octavia hadn’t really seemed to have left Bellamy’s side at all, just followed him around like a lost puppy.

He was hanging out with Clarke and Harper now, staring down blankly at an empty page that he was supposed to be writing lyrics on. Harper was sewing together costumes with fabric she’d probably stolen from somewhere, and Clarke was idly strumming at her guitar.

He wondered what Octavia was doing, _how_ she was doing. It was just so _random_ , running into her brother in a museum. He’d been living with and performing with ghosts for a couple months now, so his life was already weird. But this was even weirder. He still hadn’t really wrapped his head around it.

It’d be easier if she was _here_ , if he really knew how she was doing. Clarke and Harper were there for her and reported back to him, but it really bugged him that he couldn’t just go see her and know.

It wasn’t because he was into her. That would be dumb. She was dead, so it was never gonna happen. It was just that they were friends. He didn’t have a lot of those, so he tried to be there for the ones he had. Sarcastically, sure, and acting like it was a chore usually, but he’d still be there.

But he couldn’t be there for Octavia when she wasn’t anywhere he could be.

An open notebook dropped into his lap, and he looked up at Clarke as she sat back down on the other couch.

“She wrote it for him before we died,” she said, shrugging and Murphy glanced back down at the page, tracing his fingers over the title of the song. _Unsaid Bellamy._ “I probably shouldn’t be giving it to you without talking to her first, but she needs some sort of closure there or I don’t know how long it’ll be before she comes back.”

Murphy’s eyes traced over the lyrics, singing them to a half-assed tune in his head. If he was the type of guy to cry, he might’ve cried at them. He could tell Octavia had, once upon a time. There were dried tear stains on the page, smudges on some of the words.

“Where is she?” he asked Harper and Clarke, carefully tearing the page from the notebook.

“Museum,” Harper supplied, pushing away from the sewing machine. “Bellamy’s shift ends at four. I think she recorded it at some point. I’ll look in the boxes.”

Murphy tucked the paper into his pocket and followed Harper towards the boxes of their old things that had been left there when Harper’s parents moved, trying to figure out just what he was going to say when he saw Octavia again.

Octavia felt kind of numb. It was a lot, all at once. Seeing Bellamy again. Not being able to pretend she didn’t remember everything she’d said to him. Being hit with just how old he’d gotten, that he’d had a whole life in the years that had gone by in a blink of an eye for her.

It was a lot.

So she followed him around, unblinking, unable to stop staring at him, stop trying to fit this man into the version of her brother she’d had in her head all this time. He had a beard. Last time she’d seen him, he’d hated having any facial hair to the point of shaving off all his stubble every morning. And now he had a beard.

How much else didn’t she know about him?

She didn’t realize that Murphy’s class had left, that the tour had ended, until she was climbing into the passenger seat of Bellamy’s car.

“Octavia.”

She blinked, tearing her gaze from her brother for a moment to look at Harper and Clarke in the backseat.

“You can go,” she told them, already returning her attention to Bellamy. “I just need to—I’ll be back. I just need to be with him for right now.”

She was pretty sure one or both of them said something in response, but it didn’t register.

She didn’t know when they left, but they didn’t follow her into Bellamy’s house.

He was hit by a kid immediately upon entering, a girl who was somewhere in the middle school age—Octavia had never really been around a lot of kids.

“Dad’s home!” the girl yelled into the house, and Octavia could feel a lump forming in her throat.

“Hey, Janie,” Bellamy said, pressing a kiss to his daughter’s head. “How was school?”

She chatted on about all the middle school gossip, and Octavia could feel her throat closing up.

It was just so nice. Bellamy had a house and a kid. He had a family.

He had a wife, too, who he greeted in the kitchen with a kiss, and a son who looked like he was Octavia’s age, and they all ate dinner together at the table and talked about their day.

His wife, Gina, was a veterinarian and had done surgery on a dog to pull an entire badminton net out of its guts. His son, Gus, had aced his pre-calc test. Janie had come in first at cross country practice.

And Octavia sat at the table with her brother and her family, unable to think about anything other than that, in a different life, she could be here, too. They could have invited Auntie Octavia over for dinner. She could have had her own life, her own family.

But she died.

She never got this, never _would_ get this.

She’d never get to apologize to Bellamy for everything she’d said, everything she’d done. She’d never get to know if he’d forgive her, if she’d even have gotten the chance to come join him and his family at dinner sometimes.

The numbness had been fading, cracking and popping as bits of feeling returned to her.

“When’s Octavia coming back?” Janie asked, and Octavia’s eyes snapped over to her niece.

“What?” she whispered.

“Tomorrow,” Bellamy answered, cutting his steak. “You’re going with Mom to the airport, remember?”

Janie groaned, slumping down in her seat until only her head could be seen over the table. “She’s been gone for _so long_ ,” she complained. “I’m gonna go back to UArk with her after Thanksgiving, okay?”

Gina laughed. “You’re too young for university,” she pointed out.

Janie shrugged, fishing at the table until she grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes. “I can just live in Octavia’s dorm.”

“Right,” Bellamy agreed, laughing. “Your sister will love that.”

And that was what broke her. That was what cut through the last of her numbness and made her break down at her brother’s kitchen table.

He’d grown up. He’d gotten married and had kids and had a life.

And he’d named his daughter after her.

His daughter, who was away at university. His daughter, who was older than she was. His daughter who was alive and presumably happy and who would be home tomorrow for Thanksgiving weekend.

She cried through the rest of dinner, over her brother and his family laughing and talking around her. She cried for the life she’d never gotten to live, for all the things she’d said and the things she’d never had a chance to.

She cried.

It was later, when everyone in the house was in bed and she was curled up on the couch with a photo album she’d found under the coffee table, that she realized what him naming his daughter after her meant.

He forgave her.

He shouldn’t have. She’d said horrible things, and then just disappeared. And then she’d _died_ , and she had no idea what that meant for him, how he dealt with it, but it would have been awful.

He shouldn’t have forgiven her, but apparently he did.

She followed him around. It was pathetic, really, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything else.

She sat on the stool that wobbled in the kitchen, the one that neither of his kids went near, the one where she’d be out of the way, and watched them. 

She learned that Janie was a grouch in the morning and that her hair took a long time and a lot of detangling spray for Gina to make it presentable for school. She learned that Gus ate his cereal with yogurt, just like she had, and that he didn’t own a single pair of matching socks. She learned that Gina was way too chipper first thing in the morning and that she had such bad allergies that she took three different types of medicine in the mornings. She learned that Bellamy liked coffee now, that he drank it from a handmade mug covered in colourful baby handprints, and that he loved his family so, so much.

She learned that there were pictures of her in their house, pictures with Bellamy and sometimes their mom and sometimes her friends on the walls in the hallway, amongst the pictures of Gina and her siblings and their kids and the rest of their family. She learned he kept pictures of his kids and his wife in his office at work.

And, when she got home from work with Bellamy the next night, she learned that his oldest daughter, the one who shared her name, was in her first year of psychology, but liked her kick boxing classes more than the ones that counted towards her degree. A few days later, she learned that the other Octavia acted like she was too cool to be sad about leaving her family at the airport, but that she held her little sister tightly when she hugged her goodbye, and that there were tears in her eyes once she’d gotten out of her family’s sight.

She learned a lot about Bellamy and his wife and their kids in the days she spent with them.

But he was happy. He was so happy, and his life was so, so good.

There was a part of her that kept pointing out that she was being stupid. If she wanted to sit at a Thanksgiving dinner she couldn’t eat, she could be at Murphy’s, where there would at least be people she could actually talk to. She _should_ be at Murphy’s. She should be helping get their set list together for the Halloween dance, should be laughing and joking with Harper about getting Murphy into that sexy witch costume.

She should go. She should leave Bellamy to his life—his happy life. His life without her in it. She should leave them and go back to the only thing she could do now.

But she couldn’t make herself leave. She couldn’t convince herself that seeing this, seeing her brother grown up and his grown up life and everything she’d never be able to get for herself, wasn’t some sort of penance for everything she’d done to him.

So she couldn’t leave. No matter how much she just wanted to curl up in Murphy’s bed and feel the vague warmth of him next to her, wishing they could actually touch. Clarke and Harper were checking in, but Harper was too nice and Clarke wanted to make her talk about it—ironic, considering Clarke was shit at talking about her own feelings—and there was a part of her that wished Murphy could be here. He wouldn’t be nice or try to make her talk. He’d just needle her and bug her and bother her until she laughed and forgot about how sad she was in the first place.

She wished he could be here.

She didn’t try to think about what that might mean.

She never expected her wish to come true, to see Murphy standing at the exit from the museum, waiting for her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, voice raw from disuse.

He glanced at her for a second, offered her half a smile, before turning to Bellamy.

“You were the tour guide for my class last week,” he said, and Bellamy stopped to look at him. “Bellamy, right? Bellamy Blake?”

“Yes,” Bellamy said, starting to walk again. “But I actually just finished my shift. I’m heading home.”

“You had a sister named Octavia,” Murphy blurted, and Bellamy froze. “Right? I mean, you’re the right age, and how many Bellamy Blakes can there be? She used to rehearse in my garage, and I found some of her band’s stuff and—”

“What?” Bellamy cut him off, frowning. “Look, kid. If you’re a fan of hers or you’re trying to get money or something—”

“I’m not.” 

Murphy glanced over at Octavia for a second, seeming to gather himself. He tugged something from the pocket on his bag, a CD case and a piece of paper. She recognized her handwriting, and his shifted his hold on it so she could see. She caught her brother’s name and felt like she couldn’t breathe. 

“I found this,” Murphy said, holding out the paper and the CD case. “I’m pretty sure it’s for you, and I think you should have it.”

Bellamy took it from him, and Octavia couldn’t read his face as he brushed his fingers over her writing, staring down at the page.

“My dad died last year,” Murphy continued, quieter, and Octavia wondered for a moment how he was making himself talk about it when he’d refused to do so anytime they’d tried to bring it up. But then she looked at him and saw that he was looking at her, not Bellamy, that there was something vulnerable and personal in his eyes, something she hadn’t seen before. “We’d fought before he died, and I said things I didn’t mean. If I had a chance to apologize, to talk to him again, to hear from him, I’d take it. I thought you might feel the same.”

Bellamy didn’t say anything, didn’t look away from the folded up piece of paper.

“Murphy,” Octavia whispered, not knowing what she planned on following it with. But Murphy just offered her half a smile before leaving.

She was torn between following him and staying with Bellamy, but ultimately followed Bellamy when he started walking again, silently falling into step beside him as they headed for his car.

It was more silence as she sat in his passenger seat, watching the tears roll down his face as he read her words. She’d written the song so long ago, but she still remembered every word.

And then he opened the CD case and pulled out a CD, _Unsaid Bellamy_ scrawled over the front in Harper’s handwriting. She hadn’t even known that Harper had recorded her.

He stuck it into the CD player, and then her guitar playing spilled into the car. She watched him sob at the first sound of her voice, and wished she could reach out and hold him.

_“First things first  
We start the scene in reverse  
All of the lines rehearsed  
Disappear from my mind  
  
When things got loud  
One of us running out  
I should’ve turned around  
But I had too much pride  
  
No time for goodbyes  
Didn’t get to apologize  
Pieces of the clock lie broken  
  
If I could take us back  
If I could just do that  
And write in every empty space  
The words I love you in replace  
And maybe time would not erase me  
If you could only know  
I never let you go  
And the words I most regret  
Are the ones I never meant to leave  
Unsaid Bellamy”_

She’d written the song a couple of weeks after she’d run away from Bellamy, from her home. She’d been living in Harper’s garage, which only worked because Bellamy didn’t know anything about Harper and because Clarke’s mom was always working and was too busy to return the calls from Bellamy that she got, and because Clarke erased most of the messages before her mom could even get them.

It hadn’t taken her long to regret her fight with Bellamy, to regret running away. If she’d stayed, they could have worked it out. They could have figured out a way that she could still be in her band and still get to be part of Bellamy’s life.

But she was too stubborn, and so was he. So she hadn’t come home. She’d stuck it out, pretended it was the right plan, pretended she didn’t miss him.

This song was the one exception to her _don’t think about Bellamy_ rule. It was where she poured out everything she wanted to tell him, everything she _would_ tell him, when one of them stopped being stubborn and she saw him again. Every regret, every apology, everything she couldn’t say.

And now he was reading it, listening to it, and crying on his own in a parking lot.

Because everything she’d never gotten to say to him was finally coming out in the only way she could finally tell him. In a song she’d played twenty five years ago, when she’d not even known she was being recorded.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy,” she whispered when the lyrics ended, reaching out to try to touch his knee, her hand slipping through. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She stayed with Bellamy as he played the song a few more times. She stayed with him as he stopped crying enough to drive, as he pulled out of his parking space with shaky hands. She stayed with him the whole drive to his house, as he walked up to the front door and inside.

“Hey, Bell,” Gina called from another room. “Gus has basketball until later, and Janie went to Ella’s for dinner so it’s just—what’s wrong?” 

She cut herself off as she stepped into the room, catching sight of her husband standing in the doorway, staring blankly down at the paper and CD in his hands.

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes again. “They’re from my sister.”

She stayed with him as Gina led him to the couch. She stayed with him when they put the CD on, when Gina tried to pull the paper from his hands to look at it before realizing he wasn’t going to let it go. She stayed with him as he broke down again, as his wife was able to comfort him where she couldn’t, as Gina broke down, too.

Sitting there, watching her brother become a blubbering mess, she realized that there was no way she could ever really make up for everything she’d done to Bellamy. She’d told him she hated him and never wanted to see him again, and then she’d run away, and then she’d died. He never should’ve forgiven her for that, and she never should have done it in the first place.

But this, her song, it was a start. Even if she could never figure out how to do anything more for him, at least he knew how sorry she was.

Sitting there in Bellamy’s living room, watching him cling to his wife as he sobbed, was starting to feel too personal, too much like something she shouldn’t be there for, so she disappeared, popping into Murphy’s garage.

“Where is he?” she asked Harper and Clarke, startling them from where they were making out on the couch.

“His room,” Harper supplied, climbing off of Clarke. “Are you—”

She disappeared before she could finish that thought.

Murphy was in his room, and turned as she popped in, like he’d somehow sensed that she was coming. He had a black eye again, one he hadn’t had a few hours ago when she’d seen him with Bellamy, but of course he would have gotten into a fight on his way home. That was just Murphy.

“I’m sorry,” he said before she could say anything, taking half a step towards her. “I should have asked you first before I gave that to him. But you weren’t here and I was worried and I didn’t know how to help and Clarke showed me the song and Harper found the CD and I—”

He kept going, kept babbling nonsense, and Octavia half wondered how long he’d keep going if she let him.

But he was here, like she’d been wishing for days, and he’d worried about her and cared enough to bring a super personal song to a stranger and share his own story with him, just because he thought it might make her feel better.

It’s instinct more than anything that took her across the room, closing the distance between them with a few steps.

And then she was cutting him off with a kiss.

It wasn’t really a kiss, as much as she wished it was, because they still couldn’t touch each other. But even with her eyes closed she could tell he was there, the same way she could feel him when they were lying next to each other in his bed watching TV on his computer. She could feel a vague warmth against her lips, could feel the warmth moving as he did, could feel his sharp intake of breath. She could feel the warmth of his hands when he brought them up to cup her cheeks, like he could somehow change the laws of ghosts and hold her there, keep her from leaving.

She indulged the thought, pretending it was real. Pretending that she was alive and that one day she would get to grow up, that she’d ever get to be older than seventeen. Pretending that this could work, that she and Murphy had any chance of a future together, that he wouldn’t just keep getting older, keep changing, while she stayed exactly the same.

With her eyes closed, with the warmth of Murphy surrounding her, she could pretend that it was real.

Until his hands shifted and one moved entirely into her cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered, moving back just enough to say the words. She raised her hands, hovering them near his, pretending they felt solid to her touch. “That was—thank you.”

“No problem,” he whispered back, a little bit dazed and a little bit breathless. She could feel the warmth of his thumb brushing just inside her cheek, and wished she could feel it for real. “I wish you weren’t dead.”

She laughed a little breathlessly, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that were threatening to fall.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Me too.”

Eventually, she needed to let Murphy go to sleep. Eventually, she needed to find Clarke and Harper and work on their set list and see what kind of costumes they settled on. Eventually, she had to get back to this not-life she’d created for herself.

But, right now, she was content to stand in the warmth of Murphy’s arms and pretend.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed!! Go watch Julie and the Phantoms on Netflix if you haven't seen it yet! 10/10 recommend!
> 
> Also go read the rest of the Chopped fics, and keep an eye out on their Tumblr for voting!
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life!!


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